Dark Chocolate Brownies

Sorry no picture on this one. I made a tray of these earlier this week and they were gone so quickly.

The original recipe comes from the Engine Two Diet and was given to them by Lydia Heckendorf.

These are just fantastically awesome!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup light brown sugar pcked
1/2 cup raw sugar
1 cup unsweeteened applesauce
1 Tbsp EnerG egg replacer mixed with 1/4 cup water
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp vanilla soy milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups dairy free chocolate chips or chunks

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375
Combine the sugars and applesauce in a mixer
Beat in the egg replacer mixture, soy milk, vinegar and vanilla
Combine the dry ingredients (except the chocolate chips).
Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet while continuing to mix
Once combined, stir in the chocolate chips
Pour the batter into a 9x13 sprayed with cooking spray
Bake for 16-20 minutes or when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean
Let cool
Cut and serve

Amish White Bread

I've tried making bread many times. I blame my mother for this. Growing up it seemed she was always baking something and the smell of fresh baked bread lingers in my head all these years later.

So I've run through many recipes. One problem I have had repeatedly was a non-rising bread. This recipe though seems to work well.

Ingredients:
1/4 oz Dry Yeast (1 packet)
1/2 Cup Warm Water
1/3 Cup Sugar
2 tsp Salt
2 Cups Water
2 1/2 Tbsp Shortening
6-7 Cups All Purpose Flour (I have not tried it yet with any whole wheat flour)

Instructions:
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water
In a Mixing Bowl combine the 2 cups water, sugar, salt and shortening
Stir in the yeast and water
Slowly add the flour to form a moist dough (I used a kitchenaid for this part)
I then kneaded it in the mixer. You could also do this by hand
Put in a greased bowl covered and let rise (I put mine near my Cable Box where it is nice and warm) for two hours.
Punch down, and divide into two equal parts.
Place into two greased loaf pans and let rise until higher than the pans (another 1-2 hours, back to the Cable Box!)
Bake at 375 for 30 minutes
Cool for 10 minutes
Turn pans on side and let rest until bread is loosened.
Remove bread from pans and let cool completely on a rack.

This is a great, easy bread recipe.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies!

A friend of mine likes to bake. He goes in for all the crazy stuff (I hear he's working on maple syrup bacon chocolate chip cookies). For obvious reasons some of his recipes aren't going to work for me. He found a link to a recipe and I thought I'd try it. These cookies are AWESOME!!!!! Sorry there is no picture of these they just went so fast!

Credit for the original recipe goes to hipbonez at RecipeZaar.com. I made one or two slight modifications.

Ingredients:
2/3 Cup Crunchy Peanut Butter
2 Tbsp Smooth Peanut Butter
4 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
1 1/2 Cups Light Brown Sugar (I actually used Splenda/Brown Sugar)
2/3 Cup Vanilla Soymilk
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt
2 Cups Rolled Oats
1 1/3 Cups Chocolate Chips (gotta look at the label)

Directions:
Heat oven to 375
In a large bowl mix together the first five ingredients
In a small bowl mix together the flour(s), salt and baking soda
Stir the dry mix into the liquid mix
Stir in oats and chocolate chips
Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto a Silpat or Parchment Paper cooking tray
Bake for 12 minutes or until set
Let cool on tray for 5 minutes

This yielded somewhere in the range of 60 cookies for me.

An excellent chocolate cake

I needed to make a birthday cake and so I did what most people do these days. I Googled "Vegan Chocolate Cake Recipe" and there was a bunch. I found one that was described as the best cake ever. Well I had to try that. So, first let me give credit where it is due. I found this cake at Instructables.com (http://www.instructables.com/id/The-BEST-chococlate-cake-ever...that-happens-to-be/) and it was written by someone named Alicia K.

I present what I did here for you. The picture represents the cake after we had already had some.

There are two ingredient lists, one for the cake and one for the chocolate glaze. You're going to need some time for the recipe as the cake needs to cool off before you can put the glaze on top of it.

Cake Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (or a little more)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup warm water

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp distilled vinegar (I used apple cider)

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl

Add all of the liquid ingredients and stir until the batter is will combined

Pour the batter into an 8x8 pan (I sprayed mine with cooking spray first)

Cook for 35+ minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean)

Remove from pan and place on a rack to cool.

Chocolate Glaze ingredients:

1/2 cup sugar

4 Tbsp margarine

2 Tbsp vanilla soy milk

2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (mine were heaping)

Jimmies/Sprinkles whatever else you might want to decorate with

Once the cake has cooled, everything but the jimmies/sprinkles in a small sauce pan

Put over moderate heat and stirring often bring to a boil

Once at a boil reduce to a simmer and continue stirring for 2 minutes

Remove from heat and occasionally stir for the next five minutes.

Pour over the cake letting gravity spread it across the cake

Add any jimmies/sprinkles decorations you want

Let the glaze continue to cool on the cake and develop a nice shine

Enjoy!